Monday, March 22, 2010

A Quinton's Bartender Discusses KU's March Madness Loss! / Also: Recent Concert Reviews

A quote from today's UDK:

"Andy Alldredge, a bartender at Quinton’s Bar & Deli...said the bar was extremely busy with people watching the game. But after the game ended, about half of the bar stormed out. “Most of them left their tabs open and left their credit cards here,” Alldredge said."

Chip: "Shit. I forgot my credit card."

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It's always hip for a band to perform an album from their back-catalogue in its entirety at gigs, as Sonic Youth recently did with Daydream Nation. Larryville's own Appleseed Cast decided to get hip this past weekend at the Record Bar by treating audiences to both "volumes" of Low Level Owl, their 2001 masterwork(s). Hugh Welch's Pitch review is worth quoting at length:

"To listen to Low Level Owl 1 and 2 song by song with headphones is like listening to a springtime forest with ear canals clogged by cotton balls: it's a work that must be heard summatively and in person to be understood. In many ways, the Appleseed Cast's members have more in common with classical composers than rock artists. Sometimes called America's answer to Radiohead, I believe the Appleseed Cast is more akin to a German group called Popol Vuh, known largely for scoring Werner Herzog's films. They're evocateurs of mood, ensnarers of states of being...

As my heartbeat attuned to the flitting and faltering of John Momberg's drumming, I envisioned myself seated on a petrified log amidst the thickets of the wilderness, pondering nature's symphony. And there were other times - prompted by the ache of Pillar and Christopher Crisci's minimalist guitars - that my mind's eye latched onto scenes of depravity (a hunter's bullet deadening the swagger of an ornately-arrayed turkey) and monstrosity (a fleet of bulldozers pulverizing underbrush)...The mushrooming guitars and brain-befuddling repetitions resulted in a severance of spirit from flesh. When the music stopped and the lights cued, I had to pull my ID from my billfold to remember who I was."


Chip: "(A) I'd rather listen to an actual springtime forest, and (B) this reviewer is obviously on mushrooms."

Cl.thier: "(A) Is 'summatively' actually a word and, if so, (B) is it used correctly in that review?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think I had that reviewer as a student (twice). I remember writing a lot of "strive to be more concise." Clearly, I have failed as a teacher and the mushrooms have won.

EW said...

Why isn't this Facebook so I can "like" that comment?

("...strive to be less high.")

professor morel said...

Sure, it's risky, but sometimes the 'shroom can produce great work. I can encourage my students to "experiment," both in life and on the page.

cl.thier said...

I believe I also had this student - that's two teachers who failed miserably at getting this kid to shut up!

I bet his creative writing teachers loved him. /sarcasm